Cultivated Recruitment Workshop

The Cultivated Recruitment Workshop is designed to get hiring managers and HR alike, designing effective hiring programs that put the candidate at the centre of the process.

It’s easy to find average candidates, but finding good people takes time. And good people expect a respectful, timely and professional recruitment process. Good people will also be in demand, so a high speed of “application to offer” is also important.

This interactive and seminar based workshop will help you to build that process.

Every attendee will receive a complimentary digital copy of my book Join Our Company – as it contains more details we cannot cover in this workshop.

Content

Introduction

A brief seminar style walk-through of why hiring tech talent is hard, fun and simpler than many companies would believe.

A brief introduction to the day and what we’ll be doing.

Designing a WOW process

From candidate application to a decision in 10 working days!

Speed is important when recruiting good candidates – they don’t hang around long.

That’s why it’s important to balance an effective hiring process with a speedy one. Rushing in to hiring is a recipe for disaster, but idling too long may lose candidates.

In this section we’ll look at a Utopian process that works, based on evidence and experience. It’s my standard recommended solution, based on sourcing to on-boarding.

We’ll cover the high level aspects, and then deep dive to the interview process later.

Workshop Activity – I will present the Utopian process then you and your team will then use this process to design your own recruitment process. This “future state” design will then form the basis for the rest of the day.

The goal is to add as many “WOW!” moments as you can! It starts by building empathy in to your process – and that means putting your candidate at the centre of the process.

Cash versus Culture

Not many companies can offer such high salaries that candidates aren’t thinking about money.

So instead of worrying about lack of budget focus on some of the other aspects of the role that can be used to balance a less than competitive salary. Not all candidates are seeking purely financial reward.

Workshop Activity – you and your team will be filling in the right hand side of these scales. What can you offer than could compensate for potentially not having the highest salaries?

Creating compelling job adverts

Ideas on how to stand out from the crowd and create compelling job adverts that focus on the person rather than a generic list of skills.

Workshop Activity – you and your team will be creating standout adverts that are compelling, targeted, full of Tone Of Voice and have good calls to arms after a brief introduction to why good adverts are important. We’ll pick one or two roles and the rest is up to you!

The Interview Process

The interview process is a perfect time to make a WOW impression. It’s also one of the easiest areas to make improvements.

Workshop Activity – I will do a brief presentation of what an effective, high-touch recruitment process looks like. You and your team will then go through each part of the process designing what should be included in your process.

We’ll then work through each of the 4 sections covering interactively :

Interview questions

Structures and Environments for good interviews

Boiler plate templates provided by Cultivated Management for use

How to use Trello as a simple Applicant Tracking System (we skip this if you have your own system in place – I can provide a sample Trello template for your use too)

How to optimise for the candidate AND hiring team

Some legal and illegal question training

Basic non-verbal communication

Keeping notes and records

Effective decision making meetings

Technical challenges and how to use them constructively

Q&A Activity – an opportunity to ask questions of myself and each other, about what a good interview process might look like for you, what challenges you may face and how to make the process more efficient.

Reaching candidates through social platforms

Your candidates are likely to be on social channels such as Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube. They will also likely seek out reviews and information from Glassdoor too.

Learn how to use these social channels to find people in your industry and start your journey to Employer Branding.

Seminar based – short module where I present some facts and ideas around social recruiting. I provide some thoughts and inspiration on starting your long journey around Employer Branding and why it’s important to start now. We cover blogging, social media, Glassdoor and LinkedIn.

Working with recruiters

Learn how to work with recruiters, find the rights recruiters and build strong relationships with them. Most recruiters are good to work with. Some aren’t.

Seminar based – short module where I present some ideas about working with recruiters. This is heavily covered in the Join Our Company book.

Non-verbal communication and interviews

In this section we will look at non-verbal communication and how it’s a real super-power, especially so during an interview.

We’ll go over “the baseline” and “tells” that candidates may give away during the interview. Powerful stuff indeed.

Workshop activity – a group activity where we’ll mock an interview and cover some of the basics about seating position, body language and non-verbal “tells”. We’ll also cover how to close an interview early, doing so with respect for the candidate. We’ll also cover how to make an offer of employment and how to reject an offer.

On-boarding like a pro

Workshop activity – In this section we’ll literally walk through an on-boarding experience and discuss some of the tactics and strategies for adding WOW.

We’ll then close up with any questions before reviewing the content created and key take-aways.